Fight Valiantly: Evil and the Devil in Liturgy

Introduction

The context which has provoked the interest in the question which forms the title of this study is parochial ministry in the Church of England. The ministry of a parish priest leads them into pastoral conversation with opportunities for teaching and learning. They meet with people seeking the ministry of the Church at times of ill-health, when considering baptism, and in many other contexts. Frequently in these conversations, and particularly in the context of baptismal preparation, the language of evil, and a discussion about the reality of that evil, arises. Sitting, as the author has, in dozens of living rooms and kitchens in three ministerial contexts, suburban, rural and a cathedral context, whether chatting over a cup of tea with a mum and dad planning a christening, or sitting at the bedside of the dying and reflecting with them on their illness, it becomes apparent that the liturgy is not doing everything it could to make these questions navigable.

Not only are these questions profound and important in themselves, but they have, over the past 25 years or so, also been raised in the context of changing liturgical provision. The Alternative Service Book 1980 (ASB) reached the end of its period of authorisation in the year 2000 and, over the previous five years or so, the Church of England had been drafting and refining the texts which would end up being published as Common Worship (CW). The changes in the liturgical forms, and the wealth of new resources which had not existed in ASB, spawned a number of conversations about the reality and nature of evil, and the person and place of the devil. Whilst many of these conversations took place around the same kitchen tables as the baptism preparation visits, they took place also on the floor of General Synod and in Liturgical Commission and Revision Committee discussions.

The final contextual element in the formulation of the title question of this study is the author’s period of time serving as Bishop’s Adviser on the Ministry of Deliverance in the Diocese of Gloucester, and latterly as a member of the Advisory Team in the Diocese of Salisbury. This ministry brings the minister into close contact with those who consider themselves to be under specific and personal attack by the power of evil and, very often, by the devil himself.

In all these contexts the questions which recur are those around how, when and to what extent ‘evil’ acts upon either an individual, a family, or a place, and just what the reality and the power of that evil might be. Whilst these are of course fascinating theological questions, in the pastoral contexts outlined above they are also personal, pressing and sometimes urgent questions in terms of the well-being of the people involved. It is out of this coincidence of liturgical, theological and pastoral contexts that this study asks its various questions.

The Church of England provides a number of statements in its liturgical formulae about things and persons from which one might need to turn away during the course of the Christian journey, as well as a number of statements about things and persons which one turns towards. The most obvious and explicit instances of this turning away from and towards are the Decision at baptism, and the renewal of baptismal vows at occasions like confirmation and the Easter Vigil. There are also a number of prayers and liturgical texts which name things which the Church prays for defence against. These prayers, known as apotropaic or prophylactic prayers, recognise the danger inherent in the powers of evil and pray that God will protect the Christian from these powers.

The Church also says a number of things about the nature of God himself, which include assertions of his authority and supremacy; monotheistic and Trinitarian statements; and statements about God’s attitude towards evil, and towards his people. The specifics of this study must therefore be held within a wider conversation about theodicy. Questions of how a Christian believer can make sense of the presence and power of evil in the world in its various forms: sickness and disease; the cruelties visited upon men, women and children by their fellow human beings; or the larger and less defined movements and powers which affect societies and cultures across the world; all of these are common in pastoral conversation as well as in the academy. Squaring belief in an all-powerful God of love with the lived reality of evil remains one of the ultimate questions for a monotheistic belief system at the centre of which is a God to which the faith system wishes to ascribe both omnipotence and benevolence.

This book was originally a PhD thesis, and so of necessity this study needed to be focused. The enquiry here is into theology presented by the Church of England in its liturgical formulae in relation to the devil, the demonic, and evil. What this study sets out to answer is the question, ‘Does the Church of England present a coherent theology of the devil and the demonic in its liturgical formulae?’ What is of interest therefore are the liturgical texts themselves, together with the surrounding supporting material. This book explores the way in which the participant in a liturgical rite encounters evil in word, action and symbol, and particularly those instances where that evil is encountered in personified form: the devil or other demonic forces. The liturgical formulae in question are those of CW, as the currently authorised and commended texts for use alongside The Book of Common Prayer (BCP). BCP remains authorised in perpetuity and therefore the appropriate texts from that volume will also be referred to. What will be revealed will be what the Church says about evil during its services and how much of that public language finds expression in theology of the devil, or in other demonological language.

It is worth saying something at the outset about terminology. At the points where it is important that clear distinctions are made about the different titles and terms used for various supernatural malign beings, this will be made clear. Otherwise, the terms ‘devil’ and ‘Satan’ should be read as largely interchangeable in the narrative sections that follow. Both, in common parlance, refer to an evil and malevolent supernatural being whose evil is directed against God and his people. Similarly, when reference is made to other spiritual powers of evil, the term ‘demons’ and ‘evil spirits’ ought to be read interchangeably except where specific discussion is made of the differences historically and theologically between the two. In everyday pastoral conversation both of these terms refer to supernatural powers commonly believed to be part of the devil’s realm. Where the different terms used are important theologically, more will be said.

This study will mostly be concerned with the journey of an individual Christian through their life, and therefore will focus upon services of initiation, healing and deliverance where the Church ministers to an individual at points of transition, change or crisis. It is recognised from the outset that the language of evil is used of groups and communities as well as individuals, and indeed is also applied in relation to places. Where liturgical resources exist which discuss the impact of evil upon something other than the individual, these will also be discussed.

This study falls into three parts. Part I (chapters 1–4) contains historical reviews of the liturgical theologies and various liturgies of the Church of England, as well as the methodology for this study. Part II (chapters 5–7) contains the structural analysis which is the heart of this study. Part III (chapter 8) comprises the theological, liturgical and methodological conclusions.

Chapter 1 is a discussion of liturgical theology in the Church of England. The historical relationship between what the Church of England prays publicly and what it purports to believe is an important one, and crucial for a discussion about whether a theology of the devil and the demonic is perceivable within BCP and CW. Beginning with the Preface to the Declaration of Assent,¹ exploration will be made of the way in which the Church of England describes the relationship between its liturgy and its theology. The place of the historic formularies will be discussed, and two examples given of the way in which the liturgy has been appealed to over the course of the Church of England’s history in relation to its theology. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Fagerberg’s exploration of liturgical theology which has been of use to this study in illuminating how liturgy and theology relate.²

The liturgical history of the Church of England begins with the first texts of the Reformation period, and the scope for exploration of the liturgical theology contained therein is immense. Constraints of space and a desire for focus mean that it is only the CW and BCP texts which will be studied in any depth here. Chapter 2 briefly accounts for the development of the liturgy of the Church of England, focusing specifically upon the texts concerned with initiation and healing, from The Book of Common Prayer of 1549 through the major reforms of the liturgy up to and including the period of liturgical experimentation of the second half of the 20th century resulting in the publication of ASB. This review will be of necessity brief and incomplete, but it will highlight the major theological and liturgical developments in the areas of the liturgy which concern the candidate’s interaction with the devil, the demonic and evil, and provide context to the more detailed exploration of the way in which CW was born.

Chapter 3 lays out the methodology for the study. A consistent and systematic method of examining the liturgical texts in question will be crucial if a fair appraisal of the Church of England’s ability to articulate theology through those liturgical forms is to be undertaken. The core method for this study is that of structural analysis. Structural analysis as a method is most fully and clearly articulated by Taft.³ Chapter 3 will explore Taft’s methodology, and Day’s subsequent modification of the methodology which is also hugely influential for this present work.⁴ Modifications to their methodology have been made in order to reveal theology rather than the history of a rite. It will be demonstrated that this methodology is a new offering to the field, and has the potential to be of significant use to liturgical theologians in analysing other rites in the tradition. All scriptural references unless otherwise stated will be to the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV).

Chapter 4 is brief. It is necessary at some point to catalogue the terminology used for the devil, the demonic and evil in CW. This could have been done as a discrete section within each of chapters 5–7, but in order not to break the flow of those chapters the data have been presented separately. Of particular note will be those liturgies which are not otherwise treated by this study: the Office of Compline (Night Prayer) and the Collects in particular. As will become apparent in chapter 7, the use of names is theologically significant, and so this review of terminology at the outset will be beneficial to the reader when structural analysis is undertaken.

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 form the heart of the study. First the principal initiation and healing rites will be subjected to structural analysis. The text used will be the authorised CW material, and the method for selecting the particular service to be analysed will be explained at the beginning of each chapter. Deliverance liturgies are more problematic. In the Church of England they do not enjoy the same status in terms of authorisation as the rest of CW. They are also highly restricted in terms of their availability. Permission to examine and discuss the rites in detail was granted for the academic exercise of the thesis. The same permissions do not obtain when publishing a work for wider readership. The reason and rationale for this will be discussed both in chapter 7 itself and in the conclusions, and this distinction in terms of authorisation will prove crucial in the attempt to argue for the coherence of the Church of England’s theology. In each of these three chapters scriptural and theological themes pertaining to the rites in question will be identified and the specific liturgical material to be subjected to structural analysis will be delineated. Structural analysis will then be undertaken and reflections upon the material studied will be gathered together and summary conclusions made.

Part III consists of the conclusions: theological, liturgical and methodological. As will be clear by this point, the theological and liturgical conclusions are intimately intertwined, so separating them is artificial. However the separation does allow the conclusions to make a number of specifically theological observations about the way in which the Church of England appears to be working, and then evidence the specific deficiencies in the way in which these theological assumptions are codified in the liturgical material. This study is concerned specifically with the way in which the Church of England handles its liturgical theology in relation to one specific area of doctrine: evil. The theological and liturgical conclusions hold the Church of England to account for the inconsistency and inadequacy of its liturgical theology in this regard. The final section of chapter 8 reflects upon how the methodology developed in this study could benefit the Church of England both in terms of broadening the remit of this examination of its liturgy, and also in terms of using the methodology to pursue different avenues of theological enquiry.

Notes

1 Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (London: Church House Publishing, 2000), xi.

2 D.W. Fagerberg, What is Liturgical Theology? A Study in Methodology (Minnesota: Pueblo, 1992).

3 R.F. Taft, Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding, 2nd ed. (Rome: Pastoral Press, 2001).

4 J. Day, The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem (London: Ashgate, 2005).

Part I

1

Liturgical Theology and the Church of England

Introduction

It is the intention of this study to examine the currently authorised liturgical formulae of the Church of England with the aim of discovering whether or not the Church is able to present a coherent and articulate theology of the devil, demons, and the powers of darkness. In order to accomplish this it will first be necessary to explore the Church of England’s understanding of the relationship between liturgical formulae and the official formulations of its beliefs or doctrines. How does the Church understand theology and liturgy to be related? The traditional assumption is that the Church of England’s doctrine is presented in its liturgy; that if one wishes to know what the Church of England believes about something, the liturgical resources are the source to which one would refer. This traditional belief stems from a particular interpretation of the formulation lex orandi, lex credendi: literally the law of praying, the law of believing,¹ which scholars have interpreted variously, some examples being the rule of prayer determines the rule of faith,² or the law of prayer establishes the law of belief.³ This study will consider the way in which the Church prays, and the way in which the Church expresses her doctrine, and hypothesise about the relationship between the two. If it is to be argued that liturgical texts are significant in the process by which a Christian community arrives at a set of statements of beliefs, then Prosper of Aquitaine’s formula requires anyone seeking to undertake this type of research to first ask important questions about the authority of the texts which are being studied.

Before this study attempts to define a methodology and to enter into a detailed examination of the CW texts which refer directly or otherwise to Satan, the Church of England’s understanding of the relationship between its liturgy and its doctrine will be explored. The traditional formularies will be identified and a number of the ways in which Anglicans have conceived of the relationship between these formulations and the doctrines of the faith will be presented. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate ways in which the Church of England has attempted to articulate the relationship between its liturgy and its theology over time, and not to catalogue the entire conversation. To this end two specific examples will be utilised: the Homilies, and the writings known as the Tracts. The intent is to give some account of the way in which the relationship between liturgy and doctrine has been discussed, hence the selection of the Homilies and the Tracts as evidence. It is acknowledged at the outset that these are only two of a range of available examples, and it is recognised also that the Homilies and the Tracts do not share equal authority, the Homilies being acknowledged in the Articles of Religion as having a particular status. Nonetheless, the two examples will serve to illustrate the way in which, in differing times, the Church of England has made its conversation between liturgy and theology.

Following this, available theologies of the liturgy will be examined in an attempt to provide a suitable theological framework in which to formulate a methodology and begin to examine the texts in more detail.

Schmemann, writing from the Orthodox perspective, is content to state that "the early Church firmly confessed the principle, lex orandi lex est credendi."⁴ As stated above, it is largely assumed within the Church of England, though rarely explicitly stated, that this principle holds true for the Church of England also. What follows is a thematic examination of this assumption, which seeks to ask the question: what does the Church of England actually say about the lex orandi, lex credendi? These explorations fall into four thematic areas:

The first asks the simple but crucial question: what are the historic formularies upon which the Church’s theology is based?

The second theme explores the presumption of a relationship between these formularies and the doctrine of the Church.

Thirdly, the warrant for such a relationship between liturgy and doctrine will be examined briefly, under the broad thematic headings of Scripture, Primitive Practice, the Fathers and the Monarch.

Finally a specific example of lex orandi, lex credendi ‘in action’ will be demonstrated, in the concept of liturgy as a protector of orthodoxy.

After this brief thematic study, the results will be examined through the lenses of some of the available liturgical theologies which might be of use to this study.

What are the historic formularies of the Church of England?

The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons.⁵

Upon taking up a new appointment all Church of England clergy affirm their assent to these historic formularies: the Thirty Nine Articles, BCP, and the Ordinal. The Preface to the Declaration of Assent states that the Church bears witness to Christian truth through these three texts, which are themselves in some way inspired by Scripture, the Creeds and the Holy Spirit. It ought to be noted that the Declaration of Assent does not afford the status of historic formularies to any alternative services which may be from time to time authorised until further resolution of the General Synod.⁶

Identifying and affirming the special status of certain formularies has always been part of the Church of England’s practice. The requirement to swear an oath before taking up public ministry has been in place since 1583, when Archbishop Whitgift’s three articles were first issued. The first of these concerned the status of the Sovereign, the second and third covered the same ground as the current Declaration of Assent in making absolutely clear the status of BCP, the Ordinal and the book of Articles of Religion.⁷ That these formularies’ status was made clear and then protected was important, considering that they were being introduced in a period of considerable upheaval. The Canons of 1604 remained in force until 1964 when they were replaced with a similar form of words. BCP, the Articles and indeed the Ordinal have all been edited over the years by successive Convocations, which have sought to defend their alterations, additions and deletions in various ways, a process which will be discussed later when warrant for authority is explored.

Throughout the lifetime of these texts, the question of who has the authority to amend doctrinal texts constantly arises. Each successive monarch’s Act of Uniformity takes pains to establish the credentials for amending the historic formularies, and one of the key issues in the Tractarian discussions of the 19th century concerned who had the authority to alter texts which carried the weight of doctrine. The Tracts for the Times, a series of relatively affordable and widely distributed theological publications authored by leading members of the Oxford Movement, frequently argued points of doctrine. Tract 4, ‘Of Adherence to the Apostolic Succession the Safest Course’ posed this question directly, referring to Canon 36 of the Canons of 1604, and to the section which affirms that the Book of Common Prayer and of ordering of bishops, priests and deacons, containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God.⁸ The argument in this section of the Tract, defending BCP against proposed changes, is that if proposals are made to amend texts which carry doctrinal weight, the authority for that action needs to be made very clear. The Canons of 1604 which gave such status to the three historic formularies were still in force in the 19th century, and gave the Tractarians their ‘proof text’ for arguing that something which carried doctrinal weight required a special authority for its alteration.⁹ The Thirty-Nine Articles also afford status to a number of other documents, principally the Apocrypha and the Homilies. Having established that the Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written,¹⁰ it is then necessary to define the scope of God’s Word written. Of the Apocrypha the Articles note that the Church does not apply them to establish any doctrine.¹¹ The Apocryphal books are therefore firmly outside the boundary of what might be appealed to as a doctrinal standard. Of the Homilies, Article 25 is clear that they are to be taken as doctrinal statements. The Homilies must be considered also as at least semi-liturgical, because they are set formulations to be delivered in public worship where no suitably qualified preacher may be found.¹² The Homilies, the 1547 book largely attributed to Cranmer himself, and the 1571 book attributed to Bishop John Jewel, technically therefore retain their status as doctrinal statements of the Church of England today, due to their warrant in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, to which all clergy still affirm their loyalty. Throughout the history of the Church these texts, almost unread by modern Anglican worshippers, have been appealed to as guardians of doctrine.¹³

The Presumption of a relationship between liturgy and theology

Having established what the historic formularies are in the Church of England, is it possible to provide examples of Anglican writers attempting to make any statement about the lex orandi, lex credendi in relation to these texts? There is little written which directly addresses this point. It will be interesting to hypothesise about the reasons for this: whether it was simply taken for granted that the historic formularies existed, and that they held doctrinal weight, or whether it was just not part of the discussion for most of the Church of England’s history. There are writings, however, which help to form an idea of the approach to this subject, largely taken from the Tractarians, and so carrying the weight of the controversies of that time. Tract 63 states explicitly that the liturgies of BCP are traditional depositories of ancient doctrine.¹⁴ Here a theological point about the liturgy is made which will characterise the Tractarian argument. An appeal is made to the doctrinal statements of the Prayer Book on the basis that they are traditional, in other words that they convey teaching which can be traced back into the primitive Church. The significance of this is clear when it is considered that one of the chief arguments of the Tractarians was for a rediscovery of the doctrine of apostolic succession, and an appeal for authority in Church matters to be identified as apostolic and not, primarily, as monarchical:

We are not thence to infer that [the Church] gave, or that she could give, to an earthly monarch, or to his temporal legislature, the right to interfere with things spiritual, with her Doctrines, with her Liturgy, with the ministration of her Sacraments, or with the positions, relative to each other, of her Bishops, Priests and Deacons.¹⁵

Whilst Tract 5, above, does not go as far as Tract 63 in identifying the liturgy as a depository of doctrine, it does hold the two together, along with the Ordinal and the Sacraments, as the things spiritual.

Conversely, the Homilies contain almost nothing about the lex orandi, lex credendi. The 1547 book makes no reference to such matters at all, and the Second Book, whilst it has things to say about attendance at Church, and the content of church services,¹⁶ contains nothing explicit about the relationship between belief and practice. Despite the relative dearth of primary sources, subsequent writers have noted how radical the Reformation period was in the way in which theological changes were delivered to local worshipping Christians through the medium of liturgical reform. MacCulloch comments on the 1548 Order of the Communion, most of which would pass virtually unaltered into the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, it is worth pausing to scrutinize this first intimation of a revolution in England’s official Eucharistic theology.¹⁷ A change in Eucharistic theology drives a change in liturgical texts, certainly at the level of those compiling them. It is likely, however, that the change operated in reverse at the level of those receiving this new service, on Easter Day 1548. For them the liturgical texts are the change, and the official Eucharistic theology is embodied in those changes. MacCulloch notes, "several clergy in Cranmer’s own diocese were certainly quite clear that the intention behind the alteration was to alter its theology."¹⁸ Here the fluidity of lex orandi, lex credendi is highlighted. A liturgical text can be the issue, and the inspiration, of theological formulation. This important theme will be returned to at the end of this chapter.

The Tractarian period, with its preoccupation with authority and ecclesial identity, produces more attempts to define the relationship between liturgy and doctrine in the Church of England. In the Tracts can be found several specific examples of liturgy being treated as a source of doctrine. The anonymous author of this Tract appeals directly to the words of the ordination service as proof of the doctrine of apostolic succession and the fact that the specific wording matters is clear in his statement that the doctrine of apostolic succession is undeniable unless the words do not mean all that they say.¹⁹ Liturgical language is crucial, he argues, in order to hinder inconsiderate idle language. In other words, formulations serve to make clear the truths of the faith, and if words become unclear or overly flexible, so does doctrine. Tract 3 is even more emphatic about the status of BCP, accusing those who wish to alter the texts of unsettling . . . the mind of those of faith, and especially of those worshippers in the parish churches who "have long regarded the Prayer Book with reverence as the stay of their faith and devotion."²⁰ Here is a statement which seems to imply that the author of the Tract saw the BCP text as one, and perhaps the most important, support or underpinning of both faith and devotion. It needs to be remembered that these Tracts were reactionary, in other words they were responses to what the authors saw as unstable times for the Church of England, and the defence of the 1662 texts was about Anglican identity. The Tracts go further still, and suggest that because the lex orandi is the depository of a lex credendi which they take to be apostolic, therefore the liturgical forms themselves have in some sense a divine authorship:

Will not the unstable learn from us the habit of criticizing what they should never think of but as a divine voice supplied by the Church for their need?²¹

When the various models of liturgical theology are examined later it will be seen that on the surface the relationship between liturgy and doctrine can seem to be a fluid one; that they can influence one another. A more thoroughly worked out liturgical theology helps the student to move beyond the surface. Before this theme of the presumption of the lex orandi, lex credendi relationship is completed, more examples of the Tractarian period will be helpful to demonstrate how various are the ways, even within one time period and tradition, that the relationship has been conceived. In Tract 12, the extended metaphor of a conversation between the author and a friend is used to demonstrate a way of doing liturgical theology. The subject under discussion is the orders of ministry in the Church, and in the course of the Tract the doctrinal purity of the Church is ascertained by a study of the liturgy of the Prayer Book, tested against Scripture and tradition:

You see then, Sir, the next thing I had to do was consult the Scriptures on the subject and, (if it be not too bold in such a one as I to say so) to try the Prayer Book by the Bible.

Your method was the best possible, I said.²²

This is a fascinating example of theology being done by a clear method of starting with the liturgy as the presumed depository of sound doctrine, and then when concern arises as to the validity of doctrine, testing the liturgy’s soundness against scripture, and then the Fathers. In this instance, Clement, Polycarp and Ignatius are appealed to, and the liturgy is declared to be sound. Tract 27 presents a slightly different method, where Bishop John Cosin, investigating the Doctrine of the Sacrament, uses the liturgical texts in order to generate theology.²³ Might it be said that here is an example, in the 19th century, of doing theology from liturgy?

Warrants for the authority of liturgical texts as statements of doctrine

Four sources are appealed to in order to lend authority to liturgical texts: the Scriptures, the Primitive Practice of the Church, the Fathers (the latter two are also referred to as ‘tradition’), and finally the authority of the Monarch, which was significant in the Reformation period and to which authority the Acts of Uniformity bear witness. Treating the authority of the Monarch first, it is useful to